JINX; AUGUST

"I'm gonna kill you! Oh I swear to God I'm gonna kill you!"

Trees flashed by me as I ran, boughs thick full of fruit. My homicidal companion followed me in hot pursuit, never breaking a sweat. Her longer legs gave her speed, an unfair advantage she held over me.

Her name was Becca. She was fourteen, three years older than my puny eleven. So far, all the time I'd spent with her family didn't make her like me too much.

"It was in the name of science!" I cried out. "It was dead when I found it!" The clearing of trees twisted. The nearby town lay ahead of my path. I was almost safe. All I'd have to do was climb the towering chainlink face guarding it.

"You murdered Cuddles!"

She was getting closer. The fence didn't look so bad anymore.

"That thing would've died if you flicked it!" My hands clawed into the metal criss-crosses. Swiftly, I clambered up the feat of architecture.

Becca was scared of heights. That was the only useful thing I found about while living with the Clarks. They were a dreadfully boring family. None of them seemed to have any imagination. Least of all Becca.

"So you did kill him!" She screamed from the ground, face ruddy from her pursuit. "Get down here, you little twerp!"

I had scaled my way to the top. Saddling on the sharp corners that the metal offered. The ground was far from up there, a dizzy feeling whirled me around.

"I put it out of it's misery!"

"You killed him!" Sobbed Becca, rattling the fence. I wobbled, holding the top beam in a death grip. "You fucking bitch!"

In my defense, Cuddles really had been on his last leg. Becca had been practically playing around with a corpse for the month I'd been around her. Cuddles was being kept alive with countless medications and regimens. He had been taken to the vet twice in the time I'd been at the house.

Mrs. Clark was even talking about getting him surgery so he'd straggle along for a few more months. That's right, she was going to pay a ridiculous sum of money to keep her daughter's miserable zombie gerbil alive.

She mentioned surgery and that stuck with me. Surgery. Surgery. Surgery. It's all I could think about. Cuddles was a good gerbil and he had lived a long life.

I decided to take initiative and do the surgery myself. I invited the neighbor boy Bradley Bash over to play Doctor. We cut Cuddles open with safety scissors.

I felt bad when his blood got everywhere. I thought I'd be able to fix him. I wasn't. Cuddles bled out. My hands were covered in him. All his blood.

Becca freaked when she saw his taped up body laying in his cage. The tape was supposed to be bandages.

"I'm sorry, Becca!" I shouted from my perch, the shaking she had been doing to the fence increased its intensity. My balance was off. "I was just trying to help!"

"Bull Fucking Shit!" The angry girls eyes bulged, popping from her head in raw rage. "I'm gonna kill you, Jinx! Just like you killed Cuddles!" I couldn't hold on to the fence anymore. The only thing attached to the chain-link were my thighs. "I'm gonna cut you up and gut you like a fish!"

The fence slipped from my grasp. My legs twisted out from under me.

"AHHH!"

My body was flung toward the earth with a jetting force, slicing through the air. I was going to die, crash into the earth. I was certain nearly all my bones would break, leaving me crippled for the rest of my life.

I accepted my fate, squeezing my eyes closed and cringing for the contact I was set to make with the earth.

Background Music

A while passed with my eyes closed. Then more of a while. It felt as if I'd never made contact. Upon opening my eyes, I realized I hadn't.

There I was, hovering above the blades of grass below me. I was minuscule inches from the dirt, frozen in time. A bird in mid flight joined my strike for movement. Becca did not. She remained present. Only now she wasn't angry. Now she was scared.

"What the...?" Her voice lilted.

Oh shit.

Looking up at her, still paused from pre-impact, I laughed awkwardly.

"Hehehe..." Her mouth was opened like a fish. "So you've probably heard about a root beer float, right?" Becca didn't reply to my joke."How about a Jinx float eh?"

"MOOOOM!" She called out for her mother, frying her vocal chords as she backed away from me. Her face had been slapped silly with shock, stricken with horror. "MOOOOM!"

The girl spun at her heels, throwing me one last disbelieving look over her shoulder. She darted back to her house, clearly set on ending my days at the Clark's household.

Another house gone.

My journey to the ground resumed. I fell face first into the dirt, inhaling a bunch of grass. My elbows and knees got scuffed up but I would've traded that punishment over splintered bones.

"Great going, Jinx." I grumbled, burying my face back into the ground. It happened again. Although, it had been happening my hold life. Crazy weird freak incidents followed me wherever I went.

There was the Spencer's house fire when I was three. When I was four I supposedly killed Mr. Powell's cat. Then there were the scratches I gave Ms. Wilson when I was five. She had been trying to wrestle me into getting my flu shot. It was accident after accident.

I broke Joseph Berry's arm when I was six. The candy store I tried to steal from when I was seven suffered a random explosion. I was eight when the weird discolorations on my back started showing up.

Nine was the year I learned I could talk to snakes. Don't ask. Then this past year I found out that I could freaking levitate.

I was weird. I knew that for sure. Catastrophe didn't latch onto anyone else like it did me. I was friendly and tried to be happy at school but  I had already built up a reputation.

Things got really bad at school after every time I walked by a boy his nose would begin to bleed. They called me Bloody Mary. Everyone treated me like I had the plague.

Groaning, I picked myself up from the gritty earth. Dirt was smeared against my clothes but beside that I felt mostly fine. I stayed there in the forest for a while, picking at the trees idly, waiting for the regular distraught mother's shrieks.

"JINX!" My name echoed back to me from the Clark's house as if on cue. Heart feeling like it was filled with sand I trudged my way back, ready for the famous catchphrase everywhere I had stayed used.

"Pack your bags. Your social worker will be here soon."

When I reached the picket fenced house, I stepped lightly to the front porch. Head weighed down by shame, I rapped the bright red door three times. Heavy footsteps stomped their way toward me.

Mrs. Clark flung open the door, tight lipped. Her eyebrows looked more pissed than usual. However, she only gave me a look that could kill. Other than that she kept her composure. She didn't slap me or kick me or punch me. She didn't even yell.

"Get inside." She muttered, yanking me in by the back of my shirt. I was thrown into the living room, landing on the purple couch. The cushions were stiff underneath me. I hated that couch. Cuddles layed on the coffee table, his taped up belly toward the sky.

Becca sat tearfully in an armchair, wiping at her red face. Mr. Clark sat in his recliner reading the news. Even in times of distress he couldn't put that damn paper down. The only person I didn't recognize was the strange man standing in the corner of the garish room.

He was tall, with shoulder length black hair. The top of the guy's head shone with grease, he must have not been a big fan of showers. He was dressed in a dress clothes that he was about to pop out of.

He looked uncomfortable in them, fidgeting his arms around from the tight shirt. His most notable features were his face. They all laid flat again this skin. His face was as bland as a bowl of oatmeal.

I hoped he wasn't my new social worker. He looked like he had a permanent stick shoved up his ass.

"This is Mr. Snape." Mrs. Clark explained, gesturing at the awkward man. She sat on one of the chaise lounges, crossing her legs tightly. "He's come to collect you Jinx and I think it's for the best. Your bags are already packed. He has them in his car."

"Right. I get it." I nodded, my heart bruising. As many times as I had gone through this process those words never stopped hurting. "I'm sorry about Cuddles. I- I just wanted to help. The surgery was gonna cost so much and...I get it."

"Forgive and forget." Mrs. Clark said blandly, motioning at the stranger. "Don't be so sad, Jinx. This man is taking you to your family."

"Family?" A laugh nearly slipped from my mouth. "I don't have a family. I never will. I'm an orphan." I glanced back at him, taking in his scowling face. "Unless...is he a human trafficker? Are you going to traffic me?!"

I'd heard stories about other kids in foster care. Nothing good could come from strangers. Especially not weird ones like this guy.

"Christ on a cracker no!" Mrs. Clark blurted, clutching her hands together tightly. "This man, Mr. Snape, says he's with the Malfoy's. There some big shot family in England. They said that you're a distant relative of there's. Isn't that great news! You got a family, Jinx!"

"It's true." The man spoke slowly, a monotone tone drawn out from his lips. "Your aunt Narcissa just found out about your existence. She wishes to take you in."

Narcissa? That sounded a lot like narcissist.

"What?" I craned my neck toward the man. "How did she just find out, Mister?"

"It's complicated." Mr. Snape uttered, shifting in his clothes. "Your real mother, her sister, is in prison. She had you in secret and once she was taken in by police the authorities found you and sent you into foster care. If you don't mind we're on a tight schedule so I 'll answer any other questions you have in the car."

"Alright then..." I agreed, standing up from the couch. My pulse raced at the information dumped on me. A family? I had a family? Me? Who was this Aunt? Did I have more family? Who was my father?

"Goodbye, Jinx." Mrs. Clark said from her chair. "Good luck, Sweetheart."

"Bye, Kiddo." Came from the recliner. Mr. Clark remained masked by his newspaper.

"Bye." Becca mumbled, looking at her shoes. It was happening. It was really happening. I wasn't crazy. I was being taken to my real family. My heart nearly jumped out of me right then and there.

"Let's go then." I said breathlessly to Mr. Snape, a smile beaming on my face.